13 Business Lessons

In my previous post, which was on my business anniversary, I talked about 13 leadership lessons I’ve learned over 13 years. I’ve learned a lot more but I wanted to highlight those 13.

On the same day I did a video on my business YouTube channel giving 13 business lessons that I’ve learned in the same time period. I’m sharing that particular video below:

http://youtu.be/roOzb1sdqYA

Although I want people to go watch the video, where I went in more depth on the 13 lessons, I thought I’d share those lessons here as a list so that, if you go there, you’ll know what I’m going to address, and if you need to you can skip to find where each lesson begins, in case you only want to hear one that you think might apply to you.

Here are the 13 business tips:

1. Don’t let your work define who you are2. Don’t take yourself too seriously3. Sometimes you have to let the money go to stand for a principle4. Everyone is a potential business connection, but don’t overthink it5. Find people you can talk to on a business level, whether they’re in your same field or not; never be afraid to ask for help6. Always give your best effort; once the word gets out that you don’t, you can never overcome the stigma7. Always make sure to charge enough to get the client to think about hiring you and enough that you can live on8. Customers aren’t always right but work hard to treat them fairly, even when they’ve lost their minds9. Sometimes doing something for free will earn you more money in the long run10. Don’t always be selling; sometimes you have to be a regular person11. Never miss the opportunity to let people know what you do; just don’t be pushy about it12. Be flexible in what you have to offer; you might have to make money in ways that deviate from your main business13. Take care of yourself first; no one else will if you don’t try

I think those are some pretty good business lessons, also somewhat motivational. I did 30 days in a row of videos in June, and if you’re predisposed to do so you can take a look at the list of videos after you’ve watched the first one to see if any of them might tickle your fancy. Of course there are always more lessons on leadership and associated topics, and this blog always has a lot of those, so there’s plenty for everybody.

I want to put this out there, in case there are new readers who may not have seen this from me before. I’m always available to answer questions on this blog, and if some of those questions are intriguing or something I’m asked often I’d probably turn them into a blog post. After all, if one person has an issue then many others probably have the same issue. To contact me, look at the link to the left that says About and you’ll find my email address; it’s that simple.

There you go. Read this, watch the video, leave a comment here and on the video, like the video, then look at my About page and send me a question. Enjoy!

I think #7 is one of the hardest things for most independent business people to get used to. We have to break out of our “job” mentality and know what our worth is and how long whatever we can earn is going to have to last us. That and still stay competitive in price with others who might do what we do.